Ok, does anyone really believe that this plan fundamentally improve the fortunes of anyone other than the ultra wealthy?

We know that Trump is lying when he says it won't benefit him. The only year of his return made public had him paying 31 million in AMT, which he wants to eliminate and whatever trickery he wants to do with pass throughs which benefits him by 8 figures.

Frankly I don't want to hear anything else from his Goldman Sachs financial people either, they're dirtiying up "The swamp" on a daily basis

Hell yes it matters. We should require balanced budgets which forces both sides to prioritize. It's just a slush fund of spending and tax cuts right now.

Ok, does anyone really believe that this plan fundamentally improve the fortunes of anyone other than the ultra wealthy?

We know that Trump is lying when he says it won't benefit him. The only year of his return made public had him paying 31 million in AMT, which he wants to eliminate and whatever trickery he wants to do with pass throughs which benefits him by 8 figures.

Frankly I don't want to hear anything else from his Goldman Sachs financial people either, they're dirtiying up "The swamp" on a daily basis

well I can say this plan gives me thousands extra per year via the doubled standard deduction and the increased child tax credit. That's money I can throw right into equity on my home to pay off my mortgage early.

If that were fundamentally the point of the changes, I wouldn't object. It's been well established that lower and middle income earners will spend a much higher percentage of any cut and directly stimulate the economy. But the main thrust reverts to a plank of the voodoo economics that has largely gotten us into the financial mess we're in.

I agree. I'm just shocked after hearing forever that we need to reduce the debt and even shit like disaster relief needs "offsets" that so many of our board brethren are seemingly ok with adding to it now.

If that were fundamentally the point of the changes, I wouldn't object. It's been well established that lower and middle income earners will spend a much higher percentage of any cut and directly stimulate the economy. But the main thrust reverts to a plank of the voodoo economics that has largely gotten us into the financial mess we're in.

Agreed. They should just dump all deductions. The higher standard deduction will reduce the value of the HO deduction anyway. Very few people are going to pay that much in interest expense and local taxes to itemize anyway. Plus the value of itemized deductions is marginal, meaning only the amount over the standard deduction is used. It took me years to explain that concept to my mother who insisted on keeping her mortgage for the "needed" interest deduction. You are paying a dollar in interest to save a few cents on income taxes....

I've said many time that Republicans have lost their lust for fiscal discipline. It's hard to believe that we just missed getting a balanced budget amendment approved by one vote during the Clinton years. Now neither side is really for fiscal discipline, and they bad mouthed the sequester before the ink even dried because it was going to starve the military and social programs of funding.

Well, we're on a runaway train to fiscal ruin. Automatic spending, entitlements and interest, will continue to consume ever larger portions of tax revenues. Discretionary spending will continue to dwindle, and that is all that Congress controls. I believe Kasich and possibly Christie were the only ones willing to talk about entitlement reform.

In these days of thin margins of elections no one is willing to be the politician to take the bullet of ending or cutting things that should be ended or cut.

Or to be the one to say "no. We need to pay back the money we took from SS and remove the cap on what it's taken from".

Good to see Baby McCown is now a fiscal conservative.

Or to be the one to say "no. We need to pay back the money we took from SS and remove the cap on what it's taken from".

The estate tax is an interesting moral dilemma. Should the very act of dying remove your claim to the direction of the money you would have owned had you simply lived? Here is an example:
1) 30 year old has a child, and dies 6 months later.
2) 30 year old has a child, and dies 60 years later.

Why isn't the child in #1 not entitled to the 18 years of financial support that the child in #2 got simply because a parent died?

Ok One Post. Maybe let's just get it all out and going now. Why even allow anyone to even make more than 6 million bucks? Of course, if you hit the powerball spend it fast because your kids aren't getting it. And all those athletes and movie star kids better hope to do well in college.

Ok One Post. Maybe let's just get it all out and going now. Why even allow anyone to even make more than 6 million bucks? Of course, if you hit the powerball spend it fast because your kids aren't getting it. And all those athletes and movie star kids better hope to do well in college.

Do you understand the difference, from a policy standpoint, between earned income and inherited income?

Ok One Post. Maybe let's just get it all out and going now. Why even allow anyone to even make more than 6 million bucks? Of course, if you hit the powerball spend it fast because your kids aren't getting it. And all those athletes and movie star kids better hope to do well in college.

Because we supposedly value hard work in America.

Yes of course. I was getting at the fact that people happily will want to take rich people's money when they die if they do not know them. They are a faceless source. When they like them like rich athletes and celebrities they think differently.

As for my not making more than $6m comment that is simple. Why wait until people die to control wealth and have a source of funds. Why not just cap the living as they earn? We should not have royalty and inequality anyway.

Because we supposedly value hard work in America.

So the answer is "no" you don't understand the difference between earned income and inherited income from a policy standpoint.

Earned income is generally associated with the creation of value. Services, capital investment, etc. Earned income for the most part in theory and in practice has generated the creation of value. The transfer of money in an inheritance situation creates no value, it simply transfers assets from one party to another. The economy is no better off because of the transfer.

So that's the difference. All taxes are punitive, but being punitive in an earned income situation hurts value creation, being punitive in an inheritance situation, for the most part, doesn't.

Yeah I get that and don't care. See below reply to Leash.

Or we value "you" working hard to build a fortune so your kids work less hard? Argue all you want I just have a fundamental opposition to taking people's stuff.

How do you propose we fund our governments at the state local and federal level?